


A Moment of Warmth

by moodymarshmallow



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymarshmallow/pseuds/moodymarshmallow





	A Moment of Warmth

Despite his protests at the distasteful sensation of frozen ground crunching under his feet, despite his insistence that Antivan blood ran hotter than that of Fereldans, and despite the whining that always got him an extra blanket or fur every night, Zevran Arainai was accustomed to the cold.

His was a deeper chill, more painful than bitter wind and driving snow. It accumulated slow, like the growth of desert scrub, spurred by a thousand nights spent half awake on solid dirt floors. Nothing was colder than the lack of comfort and the lack of sleep, and deep in the night he often woke to the memory of scratching half formed words into solid packed earth, telling himself stories to soothe the gnawing in his belly and the frigid ache in his scrawny limbs.

Sometimes there were other wounds that needed healing, bruises and scabs and hollows in his heart where he carved out the sickness of what he’d done—of what had been done to him—and those were the ones that took forever to fix. He could patch them up with bandages and lies, but sometimes, deep in cold nights on hard, Fereldan ground, pain seared through him and stole his breath, dragging him down, down into whatever icy depths he had forgotten.

But that was all inconsequential, or so he tried to tell himself. He was alive, he was well fed, he had a bedroll and a tent and occasionally a handsome—was he handsome? Was he not lovely, or beautiful instead?—elf to warm it up, to make him drunk on fiery veins and the thudding of impatient hearts. 

Zevran was also accustomed to heat and contrast, to soft breasts and hard cocks and hungry lips and seeking hands. Those were as familiar as the cold, though much more pleasant, but they left a certain emptiness behind with the satisfaction. When his heartbeat quieted and his pulse slowed, he was still laying on unyielding ground, staring up at a ceiling or a tent or a sky that wasn’t his, telling himself stories to try to get some sleep. Sometimes he failed, but Zevran was well acquainted with failure. Because of this, Zevran Arainai was most comfortable with dichotomy. He understood black and white, good and evil, hot and cold. Grey areas were muddy and difficult, and he avoided them when he could.

Theron Mahariel was a big, unavoidable grey area. He was insinuated firmly between hot and cold, between black and white, overflowing with a tenderness than Zevran found uncomfortable.

When they met, Theron gave Zevran a scar. It was a perfect puncture, a circular arrow wound, just under his right shoulder blade. When the arrow knocked him back, Zevran was bitterly convinced that Theron had missed. The grey wardens, legends that they were, couldn’t even kill one piss-poor assassin with a death wish. It took him months to realize that Theron’s arrows rarely missed their mark, and that the one that slipped between his shoulder blade and rib cage had been a precision shot, intended only to incapacitate, and sometimes he hated Theron for it, but sometimes the thought gave him a moment of warmth, a delicious ache. 

Theron was unbearably fond of that scar. When Zevran’s shirt was off, Theron’s fingers gravitated to that ring of scar tissue, tracing it with small, callused fingers, the corner of his lips curving into a strange smile. Though Zevran was sure that Theron would never try to possess him, he knew that scar had been claimed just as sure as if Theron’s name was tattooed across it. That too made him feel strange. 

Occasionally Zevran avoided him, though it was a special kind of torture to deny himself something that was both freely given and desired. But there was nothing he could do when Theron came to him, all pale, all red, lifting the flap of his tent and crawling in, lips on his scar, fingertips on his belly, making muscles jump to meet them. He never wanted to fuck, and wasn’t that a pity, because fucking Zevran could do—he was good at it, he liked to detach his mind from his body in those long, sweaty moments. He could take attraction, he could take lust, but this sweetness was poison, the fingers that pushed hair behind his ear were too tender and he couldn’t take— _don’tcallitlovedon’tcallitlovedon’tcallitlove_ —whatever this was.   
When the nights were too cold, he rationalized it. It made sense to share a bed for body heat to stave off shivers, and if Theron wanted to wrap his arms around him and cradle his head to his heart, then that was unavoidable. Everybody wanted to be warm, and with Theron it was just like with Taliesin, just like with any of the others. 

Zevran Arainai, born liar, was best at lying to himself.


End file.
